Posts Tagged ‘Taylor Hansen’

Greg Trimble, a Latter-day Saint who blogs on Mormon topics, recently posted on the question, “So…You Think the Book of Mormon Is a Fraud?” After some poisoning of the well against critics of the Book of Mormon (they jeer at testimonies to its truth; the loudest critics have never even read it), Trimble asks eleven questions apparently meant to vanquish doubt about the truth of the Book of Mormon.

It is easy to ask short questions that seem just in the asking to provide evidence; it is another thing to back up the claims. Refuting them thoroughly in some instances might take whole books. Still, something must be said. The reader is warned in advance that what is offered here are brief, bottom-line responses, not academic treatises. Trimble’s questions are quoted below, followed by my responses.

Could an uneducated boy come up with 531 pages of ancient scripture on his own that was historically accurate and prophetic in nature?

No, but that’s not what Joseph Smith did. He came up with 531 pages of material that copied extensively from both the Old and New Testaments, with a narrative that is historically implausible in the extreme, and that does not pass reasonable tests of being prophetic in nature. Read the rest of this entry »